Especially a three-day weekend full of fair weather, lake-days, a kid-free mini-vacation, horses, and playdates galore.
We've filled these three days up with a whole lot of wonderful.
Followed up our lake-night date with a lake-morning...
I managed somehow, so my mom and I could spend the afternoon shopping together, while Nat took these two home for a little bit of rest...
While at home, they also built a teepee. Why not build a teepee?
We closed out the day with a nice dinner with gram and some time playing tennis at Cain Park. Jack has become extremely interested in tennis over the past week and, in his usual form, is picking it up quickly. And asking to play (what seems like) every five minutes...
Sunday morning Ivy and I took a drive to North Olmsted to meet Missy, a horse Becca is training. It was impressive to see Bec confidently working the horse and giving pointers to her owner.
Ivy had this shy little smile on the whole time and was super quiet. She remarked to me later that she "was shy around all the new people" but that she didn't want to leave the horses. I think I could have left her in that barn with those older girls for a few weeks and she wouldn't have missed me. She told me on the way home that she wants to be a "master of horse riding" someday...
We had the most delightful lunch at a Dairy Queen on the way home, eating out on the patio and meeting a bunch of really cute toddlers who flocked to Ivy. My girl. She has a way with people.
Yesterday afternoon we were simply too busy enjoying life in our neighborhood to take any pictures. Our friends from down the street were working on their house so the kids came down to play for a while. It was great to have the littles riding back and forth to one another's houses, climbing into the treehouse, gathering to play on the patio.
No sooner did Spencer and Andi leave, than Max and Sam came over, for a prearranged overnight. A house full of enthusiastic, video-gaming boys. Phew! they ran and ran outside, then played and played inside. We've been lucky with sleepovers so far in that the kids usually do go to sleep, right around their usual bedtime. It doesn't hurt to have them be completely worn out by the time they get there....
Nat and the kids took Max and Sam back home this morning via the fabulous Beachwood Pool, where they officially opened the summer swimming season:
I made myself stay home and clean the house, (which actually felt pretty good) before meeting up for a quick dinner swap and then an appointment at the Apple Store (hello new phone with a working headphone jack!) and then shopping at Trader Joes. No sooner did we all get home and get the kids de-chlorinated than a trio of neighbor children showed up and took our kids away for almost an hour. Nat and I sat on the porch and read and speculated as to where our children might be, exactly, and whether we should have established some ground rules, before determining that we really had no problem with the sweet 9 year old Rachel being in charge, and guessing that our two were most likely about 4 houses away on a fabulous tree-swing.
They appeared at home not long after, happy and sweaty and tired. I am so excited to see them finding friends and freedom in our nieghborhood. Ivy independently changed into her swimsuit and headed back for some water play, walking herself back to the corner all on her own. Terrifying and exhilarating, to watch her walk off, so big and so confident and so lovely and so little, all at once...
They are so big, these two. But look! We can all still fit in the hammock together, for one last bit of weekend before a short, busy week commences.
Four days left in the classroom for me, a week of summer camp for Ivy, the second to last week of grade 2 for Jack.... I will try hard to enjoy it as much as I enjoyed these past three days of leisure. I will try.
No comments:
Post a Comment